by David T. Beito

"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." – Daniel Webster (1782-1852)

by Keith Halderman

If I read one more article or hear one more pundit telling me how important the upcoming presidential election is I believe I will vomit. No matter whether we elect Barack Obama or Mitt Romney the American people will still have trillions of dollars of ever increasing national debt and they will still have to come up with billions eventually trillions of dollars out of their own pockets to pay interest on it for which they will receive no education for their children, no health care for themselves, no increased ability to defend from real rather than media created threats, no infrastructure to help them earn a livelihood, no advances in science, no cleaner an environment but the government will get the privilege of borrowing even more money with which to buy our votes and the big banks will get funds from the federal reserve created sham money at 0 percent interest which they can loan to people and businesses at 20 percent interest. This system is good for politicians like Obama and Romney, the military industrial complex, the prison guards union, the thousands of government bureaucrats who feel entitled to control the minutest aspects of our lives however it is not so good for ordinary people.

by Sheldon Richman

From Ynetnews'Turning Bedouin village into Jewish settlement is racist'

Government's decision to convert Umm al-Hiran into Jewish settlement enrages Bedouin residents; 'You can’t just take an Arab and put a Jew in his place. This is Nakba of 2012,' they sayby Ilana Curiel

The continuous struggle of the Bedouin community in southern Israel has once caused a stir in a move Bedouins are calling "racist.""We will continue fighting. We will not leave our land," residents of Umm al-Hiran, an unrecognized Bedouin village in the Negev slated for demolition, said. The government intends to build a new Jewish settlement called Hiran in place of the village.

by David T. Beito

by David T. Beito

by Roderick T. Long

The Molinari/C4SS/ALL crowd are planning our biggest presence yet at Libertopia next month. There’ll be a panel on Markets Not Capitalism on the main stage, featuring Gary Chartier, Charles Johnson, Sheldon Richman, and your humble correspondent. In addition, there’ll be individual talks by Gary (on “There’s War, and Then There’s Everything Else”), Charles (on “Ask An Anti-Capitalist!: A Freewheeling Q&A on Markets Not Capitalism, Left-Libertarianism, and Mutualist Ends Through Free-Market Means”), Sheldon (on “Market, State and Autonomy”), and myself (on “Race, Gender, and Anarchy”), as well as Markets Not Capitalism audiobook narrator Stephanie Murphy (on “Mutual Aid for the Modern World”); plus Charles is on an anti-IP panel with Stephan Kinsella. (Unfortunately, some of these events are scheduled opposite one another – the price of success, I guess. See the current schedule here.)

by Sheldon Richman

This is my contribution to the CounterPunch memorial issue for Alexander Cockburn, the left iconoclast who died recently.

A libertarian--a radical, decentralist, pro-market, but anti-capitalist left-libertarian, at any rate--could tell that Alex Cockburn was exceptional when even his eulogy for a departed Marxist compelled interest.

After the Marxist economist Paul Sweezy died, Alex wrote that Sweezy "trenchantly detected and explained: the reasons for the New Deal's failure, until World War II bailed out the system; military Keynesianism and the Korean war as the factors in US recovery after that war; underdevelopment in the Third World, consequence of dependency that was created by imperialism . . . ; the increasing role of finance in the operations of capitalism. . . ."

by Sheldon Richman

Tom Szasz was what Chris Sciabarra would call a dialectical libertarian. Here's an example. Many years ago the city of Berkeley, California, (if I remember correctly) had a public referendum on whether to outlaw all electroshock, or "electro-convulsive therapy [sic]." Tom endorsed the ban. But he was a libertarian, so how could he possibly support a ban on even voluntary electroshock?

Simple. He knew that electroshock was far more likely to be used on people against their will. In the unlikely case that someone wanted it, he or she could go to a neighboring community. The net result of a ban would be that no one could be subjected to that barbaric procedure against his or her will within the borders of Berkeley. Hence it was a clear-cut victory for freedom.

by Sheldon Richman

As if we haven't had enough bad news recently, I just learned that Thomas Szasz, my friend and mentor, died the other day. He was 92. I will have more to say in coming days. I am truly devastated by this news.

by David T. Beito

George Takei at the 2011 Phoenix Comicon. Credit: Gage Skidmore

It’s no surprise that I’m a Democrat. I’m a gay man, I got married to my husband Brad, and I don’t particularly like being told my marriage should be invalidated because I don’t have the same rights as other people. But mind you, I don’t forget that it was a Democratic President (FDR) who abused his power 70 years ago and put my family and me in an internment camp without charge, trial or cause. Now that was Big Government at its very worst. So I am leery of excessive government power or control of any kind.

That’s why I want to take a moment here to talk about the 800 pound gorilla in the room: To ask why the GOP has allowed itself to be hijacked by extremists who aren’t Republican at all.

by Roderick T. Long

William Lloyd Garrison’s Liberator was the premier abolitionist journal of the antebellum u.s. I’ve just posted three pieces from The Liberator: an anti-voting piece by Garrison, an anti-slavery piece by Lysander Spooner, and a report on an 1858 reform convention.

by Sheldon Richman

While Israel—cheered on by its American boosters led by AIPAC and Mitt Romney—beats the drums ever louder for a war of aggression against Iran, President Obama in late July signed the United States-Israel Enhanced Cooperation Act. This was hardly a signal that Obama would like to defuse the explosive situation building in the Middle East. The Rose Garden signing, attended by AIPCA representatives, came on top of the latest in a series of harsh economic sanctions approved by AIPAC-dominated Congress and Obama against the Iranian people. This intensifying economic warfare is predictably creating hardship for average Iranians, including shortages of life-saving medicines. (Sanctions come on top of covert warfare and assassination of Iranian scientists by Israel and cyber warfare by the United States, and an increasing U.S. presence in the Persian Gulf and surrounding area. Iran is nearly ringed by U.S. military installations.)Signing the Act, Obama said:

by Roderick T. Long

ff on the Ryan/Rand connection, from the usually insufferable Lawrence O’Donnell:

How disappointed would Ayn Rand be in her formerly devoted public disciple Paul Ryan? Well, she wouldn’t miss his devotion very much. Because his recent betrayal just wouldn’t surprise her. Because Paul Ryan was never true to Rand’s philosophy. Right-wing hero Ayn Rand couldn’t stand Ronald Reagan. She urged people not to vote for Ronald Reagan and insisted that Reagan clearly did not believe in freedom and respect for the rights of the individual, because, among many other reasons, Reagan opposed the right to choose abortion.

That’s right, Paul Ryan, a Republican anti-abortion fanatic, has until very recently been publicly proclaiming his philosophical hero to be a woman who was a relentless champion of a woman’s right to choose. And Ryan’s pro-war stance in the Congress on every issue and every funding issue involving the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War would have disappointed Rand too. …